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Major League Baseball Dumps Silverlight For Flash

Posted by kdawson on from the silverlight-in-the-pan dept.

christian.einfeldt writes "This week, Major League Baseball will open without Microsoft's Silverlight at the plate, according to Bob Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which handles much of the back-end operations for MLB and several other leagues and sporting events. The change was decided on last year but was set to be rolled out this spring. Among the causes of MLB's disillusionment with Silverlight were technical glitches users experienced, including needing administrator privileges to install the plugin (often impossible in workplaces). Baseball's opening day last year was plagued by Silverlight instability, with many users unable to log on and others unable to watch games. Adobe Flash already exists on 99% of user machines, said Bowman, and Adobe is 'committed to the customer experience in video with the Flash Player.' MLBAM's decision to dump Silverlight is particularly problematic for Microsoft's effort to compete with Adobe, due to the fact that MLBAM handles much of the back-end operations for CBS' Webcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and this year will do the encoding for the 2009 Masters golf tournament."

2 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. HTML 5? by RonGHolmes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm still surprised companies aren't jumping on the HTML 5 bandwagon. Eschew flash and plug-ins for native web browser applications and video. http://280slides.com/ is a great example of what can be done. The ObjectiveJ they're developing is truly amazing - and it's all browser native. Even IE 8 works. I hate to say it, but Apple are right for once - get rid of flash and other plug-in based user interfaces and get back to basics. Share your JavaScript frameworks, use local storage and more - embrace HTML 5.

  2. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I interviewed with them a few years ago.

    MLB.com had all their video in WMV and a pre-exisitng Windows Media Server infrastructure, because they were very concerned about rights management.

    Because they were a big Flash shop, they had to do a lot of mixing and matching Flash and JS to work with Windows Media player.

    When Silverlight came out, it looked like it would be an all-in-one deal that would let them retain their existing video infrastructure and clips, and be able to better utilize them inside the RIA's they build.

    They gave it a shot because it cost them almost nothing, MLB.com is rolling in dough and gets free stuff all the time because they're high profile.